Yuuki Terumi, also known as Black Susano'o, whose real name is Takehaya Susano'o, is the main antagonist of the video game series, BlazBlue alongside Relius Clover and Hades Izanami. He is a former member of the Six Heroes and the creator of the Azure Grimoire and by extension the Black Beast. He originally appeared as a non-playable character in the story mode of Calamity Trigger, but starting with Continuum Shift as the main antagonist, he became a playable character as well as his true form separated from Hazama in Chronophantasma. In Central Fiction, both Terumi and Hazama reappear as playable characters and do appear to be important characters to the story despite their status in Chronophantasma. Terumi in his true form, Susano'o, is the final boss of the story mode of Central Fiction and a playable character.

Yuuki Terumi was originally one of the Six Heroes who fought against the Black Beast in the First War of Ars Magus and the creator of the Azure Grimoire (and in turn, the Black Beast). However, after the beast was destroyed, he turned his back on the Six Heroes, and murdered one of them, Nine.

He was the original owner of the Susano'o Unit armor (which now belongs to Hakumen), and it is assumed that, after realizing he was forever linked to the Master Unit while in the armor, he drove himself out of it - which is possibly why he now appears as a ghost. He was formerly sealed away in the Boundary after Hakumen sacrificed himself to pull him in, with help from Jubei. He was later released before the events of Calamity Trigger by Takamagahara.

Years before the events of Calamity Trigger, Terumi had appeared at Celica's church, where Ragna, Jin, and Saya lived. Upon arrival, he killed Celica. After possessing Jin, Terumi burned down the church, cut off Ragna's arm, and abducted Saya (or in actually retrieved his boss Izanami who had trouble controlling Saya). For much the events of the first game, Ragna believed Jin to be responsible for this incident.

In the Japanese dub, he was voiced by Yuichi Nakamura ever since Calamity Trigger. In the English dub, he was voiced by Erik Davies from Calamity Trigger to Continuum Shift, and currently voiced by Doug Erholtz (who also played Greasebeard) since Continuum Shift Extend.

Contents

History

As Susanoo, Terumi was one of the Original Units, the main cause of letting humanity know about the Master Unit’s existence. In a time as long as eternity he protected Amaterasu together with Tsukuyomi, but through some cause he began to have a “will”. After that he began to hate being bound by the Master Unit and rebelled.

Phase Shift 0

When Relius Clover and Shūichirō Ayatsuki worked on an experiment to examine the Gate, Terumi offered his knowledge and information, as well as the Susano'o Unit, for their studies. During Relius' trial experiment, the Black Beast was unintentionally created and emerged from the Cauldron. Relius was swallowed by the Cauldron and Terumi's physical form was destroyed while his spirit form took heavy damage. It took five years for his spirit body to heal, after which Terumi contacted Relius in order to ask the whereabouts of his next body that Clover promised to prepare. The body, Kazuma Kval, was placed in Ishana, which was protected by a barrier that Terumi couldn't overcome in his current form. Instead, he opted to calling directly into Kazuma's mind from the Boundary itself.

​Phase Shift 1

Six years later, after the Black Beast's first arrival, Terumi's calls was ended up mostly ignored by Kazuma. However, when Tomonori threatened to end Kazuma's life, Terumi managed to reach him due to Kazuma's desperation for survival. The day after, after waking up from a dream, Kazuma sees Terumi as a delusion and was unable to recognize him and Terumi started tempting him with the Azure.

The Azure was a tempting proposal, as it not only gave Kval's life meaning, but also offered him a chance to reclaim what he lost, including his memories. Thus, Kazuma began his search for the Azure. After Kval fails to find anything about the Azure at the library, Terumi again appears in order to aid him in his journey. He surprises Kazuma with not only vast knowledge about the Mage's Guild, but also about Kval's own thoughts and feelings and is because the only pace that Terumi existed in Ishana, was in Kazuma's own mind. After Yuki's reveal that the Guild's secret information, hidden in the Cathedral, is a way to reach the Azure, they are again imprisoned in a barrier ars, this time performed by 3 Half-Beastkin assassins. In exchange for Kazuma's promise to obtain the Azure, Terumi kills of the 3 assailants. Later that night, worried Trinity comes to Kval's room, asking if something happened as Nine again had felt a strange power (ars), like the last time that Kazuma was attacked. After she leaves the room, Terumi manipulates Kazuma into believing that Trinity's real purpose was to keep him in check all along.

Finally, Kazuma manages to reach to the bottom of the Cathedral, where the man-made Cauldron is hidden. Unfortunately, Tomonori once again reappears and prepares to kill Kazuma. However, the Boundary opens and Terumi managed to enter Kazuma's body and kills Tomonori, but was injured during the battle. He tries to flee, but he is encountered by Valkenhayn, who beats him effortlessly. Terumi is then taken to Moonlight Castle, where Clavis Alucard successfully seals him away.

However, Konoe A. Mercury soon realized that Terumi's power and knowledge was necessary in defeating The Black Beast. She releases Terumi from his seal and uses the Mind Eater curse on him, binding him to Konoe's beck and call. However, Terumi managed to split his mind with Kazuma's before the spell connected, causing Terumi's controlled mind to be trapped inside the body while Kazuma takes control.

​Phase Shift 2

During the action, he is forced to follow Nine's order, but when no one is watching him, Kazuma takes over to act behind her back.

As Seven and Eight plan to go against Nine's order to dispose of the first Causality Weapon before it is complete, Kazuma appears to aid them in their schemes. He personally introduces them to the Novus Orbis Librarium and their collaboration with the organization begins. He has also shown to seep poisonous words into Trinity's ears.

During the Black Beast's appearance, he was part of Ishana's magician unit.

​Phase Shift 4

After the war, Kazuma manipulated Trinity Glassfille, who had feelings for him, into releasing Terumi from the spell. After his release, he murdered Konoe and Trinity, threw their bodies into the Boundary, and proceeded to seek out Hakumen and Jubei so he could the same. Terumi had the upper hand, but Jubei used Tomonori's Sekigan to force him to materialize. As he was taken by surprise, Hakumen grabbed him and jumped into the Cauldron while Jubei closed the gate, sealing both Hakumen & Terumi.

Terumi was sealed and trapped inside the Boundary before being finally released by Takamagahara. He met Relius, who had just finished his time leap after being swallowed by the Cauldron, again and the two resumed their partnership. Relius apparently made Terumi a new body soon after (Hazama). However, Terumi and Hazama remain as separate entities cause of the Mind Eater's effects. During the creation of Mu-12, Sector Seven desired to merge both Hazama and Noel to make a Black Beast, but Takamagahara stopped their plans by using Take-Mikazuchi, destroying the facility, leaving Mu-12 incomplete, and adopting the new identity, Noel Vermillion.

The Wheel of Fortune

Terumi briefly appear in the original timeline when he switched faces with Hazama in order to fight Hakumen. After fighting for a brief while, he shouted out for Relius to help him and, after Hakumen attacked the Puppeteer, the two engaged the leader of the Six Heroes. After Phenomenon Intervention occurred, Terumi began to throw up as he had reached the limit of his observation. He cockily told Relius to shut up and that he would handle the rest.

Calamity Trigger

During the majority of Calamity Trigger, Terumi only appeared both in his ghost form and taking over Hazama's body a couple times. During Rachel Alucard's story mode, he appears twice as Terumi, switch position the first time mocking Valkenhayn, and the second time mocking Rachel herself.

After the final fight of the True Ending in Calamity Trigger, he appears before Noel and Ragna, and after Rachel arrives, he loses his calm demeanor. His hair spikes up and his voice becomes much louder. Rachel and Ragna, having recognized Terumi from the attack on the church years before, attack him immediately, but he simply shrugs it off, and begins to taunt Ragna over the church attack before departing.

Continuum Shift

In Continuum Shift, Terumi appears as the main antagonist where he appears only in Hazama's astral or he takes over in story mode.

It is revealed that Terumi, like Hakumen and Rachel, will fade away without an Observer. Takamagahara, and later Mu (with the power of the Eye), with whom he shared a Life Link, observed him in BlazBlue. However, Mu lost her power after she turned back to Noel and Takamagahara was attacked by a magical virus from Phantom, losing its power. However, Terumi did not fade away, because he had awakened Izanami, using her vessel Saya as his Observer. As an added measure, he is using Ragna's hatred as a force to bind him to this world, as well.

Chronophantasma

He was tasked with erecting a barrier over the Ikaruga region, preparing the 13th Prime Field Device and managing Tsubaki Yayoi. Among his other goals was taking care of Ragna the Bloodedge and the remaining Six Heroes.

As part of their plan, Trinity and Rachel utilize Arma Reabore: Muchorin on a powerful level to materialize Terumi in the real world. To do so, they assault Terumi's mind and agitate him by having various illusions of characters he finds particularly annoying to taunts him, such as Bang, Ragna, and his fellow Six Heroes. Prior to Amaterasu's forced intervention, he even has fight himself, who claims that even Trinity might have not predicted so far. Eventually, Terumi's consciousness is forced to become the front side while Hazama's becomes the backside. The Heroes catch him downtown Yabiko, and almost kill him if not for Phantom's intervention. Terumi somehow manages to become the backside later, and meets Trinity again the Heroes split up to look for him. He easily defeats Trinity, but Hakumen appears to save her,. Terumi traps both of them in Phantom's Infinite Corridor to lock them away forever, but Trinity and Hakumen use the power of Muchorin to confront the source of the barrier.

In the finale, he goes to the Monolith as told by Hazama and meets Hakumen. As Hakumen tries to ascertain his existence, Terumi blames what happened on Trinity and Rachel, saying his recognition everywhere despite being finally set free. He then encounters Hakumen in battle. Terumi gains the upper hand by not allowing Hakumen any opening to charge his technique. However, as Trinity ambushes Hazama, the connection between him and Terumi put the latter to a temporary halt. Using the chance, Hakumen uses Time Killer on Terumi and kills all of his "time", effectively destroying him.

Central Fiction

Despite Hakumen's death blow, Terumi managed to survive by observing himself and he has to merge with Hazama again before he dies as his self-observing is only limited to a week. He became suspicious of Hazama, so he decided to get a new vessel. For that reason, he discarded his fragment of Azure, and instead he went to the unobserved place in the Alucard Castle, where he found Clavis' coffin, and after fighting his duplicate created from some sort of protection spell, Terumi took a cube from it, stating that with this he will gain the best vessel and destroy everything.

With the Hiihirokane, Terumi kills Hakumen, obtains the Susano'o Unit and turns into Susano'o. It is revealed that the Susano'o Unit was actually Terumi's original body and that he is the god Susano'o of Japanese mythology. With the power he now has, he wishes to destroy everything the Master Unit: Amaterasu has created out of sheer spite. Terumi was taken out of the Susano'o Unit by sheer force by Ragna and was ultimately and finally killed by Ragna during one last fight. Terumi laughs one final time at Raga as he fades away in green energy, finally ending his reign of despair.

Personality

Terumi is cruel, sadistic, manipulative, traitorous, and insane beyond measure, so he delights in the suffering of others, both physical and mentally, and relishing pure chaos. He happily provokes and manipulates others for his own amusement, and ruthlessly tortures anyone who irritates him or get in his way. Unsurprisingly, this has earned him the contempt of almost every character in BlazBlue universe, most notably Ragna, Kokonoe, and Nine. However, he is prone to breakdowns and enraged tantrums when things don't go his way.

Susanoo is more collected than Terumi, but beneath the seemingly stoic demeanor is a boiling and explosive rage. He hates being bound to the Susanoo Unit, and use that hatred to fuel his destructive tendency. He still looks down on others, but instead of displaying a playful and mocking attitude, he treats them with utter disgust, referring to them as either trash or waste. He constantly reminds those who dare to defy him the fact that he is a true god.

Although overconfident and prideful, Susanoo despises his meaning of existence. As Amaterasu creates, and he destroys her creations, they are essentially linked to one another. Whether he destroys for her sake or for himself, his actions ultimately adhere to what she desires from him, and he hates her for that. To prove this point, Susanoo expresses that her suffering is his salvation.

Appearance

His appearance in the Phase Shift 1 novel.

Terumi wears a hooded yellow cape along with long black ribbons across his arms. He also retains a few articles of clothing from his Hazama persona, including an open shirt beneath his vest that shows his chest, two belts, and black pants. When he activates Nightmare Reaper, his Overdrive, the force of the activation removes his hood, revealing his spiky green hair. His hair is also revealed during Hazama's Distortion "Serpents Unholy Wrath" and the end of his Astral.

Since his body is the Susano'o Unit itself, he looks a lot like its previous wielder, Hakumen, but with a different color scheme. Susano'o's armor and hair are black with green highlights, and eyes on his armor are green as well. What makes him different from Hakumen, is that he has a face, with teeth and green eyes, he can open his mouth, and his hair is untied. Susano'o's pauldrons also have teeth and horns like those on his head, and he has green glowing crystals on his hips. Unlike Hakumen, Susano'o has a tail.

Powers and Abilities

Stated by Jubei to be a powerful magic-user, Terumi has proven to be one of the most powerful characters in the BlazBlue universe. Terumi's primary ability is to feed on the hatred of others to make himself stronger, and it also allows him to anchor himself into the physical world. In ghost form, Terumi is intangible and immune to most attacks save those that are specially designed to harm ghosts, such as Tomonori's Hihirokane. Despite his incorporeal state, Terumi is still able to physically interact with the world. Terumi was shown to be able to erase memories by "eating" them, commenting that they are delicious. He used this ability twice, both of which were on Jin Kisaragi.

In battle, Terumi is a powerful, vicious, and savage opponent, able to fight on par with both Hakumen and Jubei. In line with his sadism, Terumi's fighting style revolves around inflicting as much pain on his enemy as possible before finally killing them. In contrast to Hazama, who relies on his Ouroboros chains and whose fighting style was graceful and dance-like, Terumi's style is far more barbaric and cruel, relying more on his serpentine spirits, butterfly knives, and knives within the heels of his shoes. He is also adept in the use of his Ouroboros for direct attacks, using it for his Snake Bite, Retaliating Fang, Venomous Bite, and Screeches of the Condemned attacks, being these the only times he uses it as such. Terumi is also able to access the power of the Susano'o Unit despite no longer owning it, using it to transform into the Dark Susano'o, a black and green shadow version of Hakumen, and deal the final blow in his Astral Heat, Unholy Wrath of the Basilisk.

Terumi is a character with more Distortion Drives than special moves. His Drive, Force Eater, allows Terumi to have a much greater Heat Gauge gain while negating it to his opponents, allowing him to utilize his Heat-related abilities far more than any other character and having several combo opportunities to use them, making his potential damage output outright devastating. His Overdrive is Nightmare Reaper, which strengthens Terumi's Drive attacks and allows him to absorb the opponent's Heat Gauge, similar to Ragna the Bloodedge's Soul Eater.

A literal god, Susano'o is considered to be one of the most powerful characters in the BlazBlue universe. Possessing the Susano'o Unit, he can use its power effortlessly and with great skill. Susano'o's fighting style is a mixture of savage and animalistic strikes and grabs with noble martial arts or samurai-esque techniques. He also uses his power to form energy-based blades for him to attack with and in his Distortion Drives he fires powerful laser beams from his mouth.

Susano'o's Drive, Takegami -God of Military Arts-, allows him to release the locks on his special attacks and level them up. That game mechanic leaves him weak at the start of the round, but the more hits he lands, the more powerful he gets.

His Overdrive, Shrieks of the Entombed, allows him to use all of his special attacks for a short period of time without having to release their locks manually, however, he cannot use the distortion drives that require said special attacks to be unlocked first, as he will still need to release those locks in order to use them.

Etymology

The "yū" in "Yūki" is from Japanese 優 yū – "gentleness, superiority" or 悠 yū – "distant, leisurely" is a literal translation. Whereas 希 ki – "hope", 輝 ki – "radiance" or 生 ki – "life" serves as the other half of the translation. However, the most likely translation is 幽鬼 yūki – "ghost" or "revenant".

His last name translates from Japanese as "beautiful shrine" and is a feminine name, although admittedly rare.﻿

Hazama's Drive name, Ouroboros, refers to either a serpent or a dragon. The Ouroboros is usually represented by a snake biting its own tail, symbolizing infinity or a never-ending cycle. His Overdrive is named "Jormungand" which references the Jörmungandr of Norse mythology that grew large enough to bite its own tail, signifying the worlds end if it ever let go. Coincidentally, the symbol of Jörmungandr looks somewhat similar to the top half of Hazama's crest. Even more coincidentally, it reflects Terumi's relationship with Ragna, as Ragnar Lodbrok was a hero who slain the serpent Jörmungandr in some legends. Interestingly, the serpent itself is the symbol of Ouroboros in Norse Mythology.

Trivia

Terumi is considered to be one of the most hated and unlikable characters in video game history, mostly for his trollish antics and the negative affect he's had on all the main characters.

He was also one of the most despicable villains in the entire Blazblue series alongside Hades Izanami and Relius Clover for his actions through the franchise.

During the extra scene from the Arcade Mode of Continuum Shift II where he unleashes Mu-12, he is briefly voiced by Spike Spencer.